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Many members of the movement in France and abroad have inquired about the position of DiEM25 on the “Gilets Jaunes”
(yellow vests) movement, especially after the scenes of violence on the Champs
Elysees which have been seen all over the world.

We are not afraid to
say it: we were divided about this many-faceted movement, which has evolved
greatly in two weeks. What’s more, a large part of the French left shared our
confusion.

The first call to
demonstrate in yellow vests, on November 17, started as a challenge to the new
tax imposed on diesel by the state, allegedly to “finance the ecological
transition.” We are not fooled by the total deception involved in this tax, created by a
government which has abolished the wealth tax and which also imposes multiple
anti-ecological measures, such as the opening of a gold mine in French Guyana
despite the opposition of the local population. Bear in mind that ecological
taxation is paid mostly by households, not by large polluting companies.

However, at that time,
most of us were not inclined to associate ourselves with an event strongly
supported by the extreme right, sovereignist movements, and a good number of
right-wing and liberal editorialists. While claiming to defend “La France du
bas” (the downtrodden), the anti-tax slogan was not then accompanied by any
demands on wages or on specific social measures. Moreover, favourable coverage
by the media, while the movement was not mobilising more people – in fact
rather less – than demonstrations against Macron’s labour law and ordinances, inclined us to mistrust this phenomenon, with its slogans against taxation, and
therefore against public spending and redistribution.

That said, the popular
dimension of the movement, effectively carried by workers often strangled by austerity policies, has challenged us. Going beyond the anti-tax revolt,
the protests reveal a France that is struggling to make ends meet. They have shown clearly that the taxes it pays do not prevent public services from
deteriorating at a high speed: the public hospital system is in crisis, job
cuts in education are announced, and rural areas are losing their public
services. Moreover, the movement from the beginning has brought together a very great
diversity of actors in its different contexts: the extreme right was very
present in the South and the Parisian demonstrations, but in Saint Nazaire, for
example, it has expressed trade union and progressive demands.

In recent weeks, you
have all witnessed the extension of the movement and its insurrectional
dimension, with violence answered by police violence (to which we are
accustomed in demonstrations in France). Initially marked especially
sociologically by the lower middle class, who works but has trouble paying
their bills, the movement has expanded to uberised workers and high school
students. The anti-tax revolt has turned into a much wider movement of people
who can’t take any more, and the list of their demands is varied and growing.
Many of them deal with justice and equality: tax justice, increase of the
minimum wage, more progressive income tax, the end of austerity, maximum salary
at 15,000 euros, an end to the closure of public services. Others are much more
problematic for a progressive movement, such as the deportation of rejected asylum
seekers and increase of the budgets of the police and the army, or completely
random demands. It should be noted that since the movement is decentralised and
its leaders are self-proclaimed and contested, these lists vary according to
the sources. It is amusing to note, moreover, that since the movement has
started to present social and political demands, and its violent elements are
attacking luxury boutiques, the language of the right-wing editorialists who
supported it has changed a lot.

What are the political
opportunities? For the moment, a key direction and a key watchword unites this
disparate movement: the rejection of the Macron government. The yellow vests
call for his resignation as well as the dissolution of the National Assembly.
Foremost is a rejection of his policies, and also of the personality of Macron
himself, rightly perceived as emblematic of class contempt. It must be said
that he and his government have used outrageously provocative language against
“people who are nothing”, or the “unemployed who just have to cross the street”
to find a job.

Gilets jaunes grafitti. Emma Justum-Foundethakis. All rights reserved.This hate is coupled
with a massive rejection of political movements. The extreme right and the
sovereignty movement “Debout la France”
of Dupont Aignan are very anxious to co-opt the movement. Recent demonstrations
appeared to mark a tipping point, with far-right figures thrown out of the
demonstrations. But several of the self-proclaimed leaders come from the
National Rally of Marine Le Pen, or advocate solutions related to fascism, like
a provisional government led by a general related to the far-right.

The movement today is
national, and in part nationalistic. It would be very difficult to talk to them
about the reform of Europe. Nevertheless, it is a challenge to our movement,
not only on the demands for social justice and taxation that we share, but also
on the issues of territorial inequality that should also be one of the pillars
of our programme and concern all of Europe and beyond: the same issue – bitter opposition to London from the de-industrialised North – was important in the Brexit referendum result, and resonated during the election of Trump. These protests driven by inequality take a different and unique form in
each country, but we believe that DiEM25 must work on a European scale, drawing on a range of commitments in the founding pillars and axes of the European Spring: to socially just public
services, an ecological transition, and the reduction of educational and
cultural inequalities. We must counter a reactionary discourse, often tinged
with racism, which opposes “Peripheral France (supposedly white)” to
“city-dwellers” and “suburbs”, multicultural “for whom we have done too much”.
And reaffirm that our solidarity does not stop at borders.

This movement is also
an opportunity to deepen our discourse on the ecological transition that must
not be done at the expense of the popular classes. France is the European
champion of urban sprawl and the establishment of shopping centres on its urban
outskirts. For decades, politicians and advertisers have incited the French to
own their own house, and now they are strangled by mortgages and dependent on
the car for mobility. When talking about transition, we must not forget
territorial planning and mobility.

On December 8, there
will be in France, like everywhere else, a climate march with which DiEM25 is
associated. There have been calls for the Yellow Vests to join. This may be an
opportunity to start a discussion. Meanwhile, the movement has opened up a wide
debate in France. We do not endorse the excesses, we condemn the attempts at
co-optation, but we cannot ignore it, nor especially ignore the social anger it
reveals against Macron’s Thatcheresque regime of austerity.

On the eve of the fourth day of action of the
Yellow Vests, the tone is one of heightened drama. The government has chosen to
send armoured vehicles into the streets with 89,000 police officers, including
8,000 in Paris, and is adopting a highly alarmist tone about the risk of
violence in its attempt to deter demonstrations. Police
officers talk about live
ammunition being fired in violent incidents. As the highschool protest movement grows, brazen police violence
against highschool students is causing widespread outrage on the left and a scandalous video going viral on
social networks has caused embarrassment to the government.

President Macron has said he would speak early
next week. Discussions with the Prime Minister with the Yellow Vests in
Matignon ended precipitately and showed the division of the movement. Calls for
calm do not seem to undermine the determination of a section of the movement’s base
that does not want to negotiate. All the eyes of government, now out of answers, are turned towards tomorrow's event, which could have radical
consequences.

The unions remain cautious. In a statement signed by seven of
them, they urge the government to negotiate on purchasing power, wages,
housing, transport and public services, but condemn violence. The CGT
states that it cannot envisage full convergence with the Yellow Vests due to
the presence of the far right but strongly condemns police violence and calls for a
day of strikes on 14 December.

Yesterday, at the meeting of Benoît Hamon of Génération.s,
a movement allied to DiEM 25 as part of the European Spring and addressed by Yanis
Varoufakis, as well as Jacques Terrenoire for DiEM 25 France, several speakers
including James Galbraith stressed that yellow vests were the children of
austerity policies and protested against the contempt shown the movement. Yanis
Varoufakis and Benoît Hamon stressed the government's responsibility to call
for an ecological and social New Deal to transform the situation from the top
of the system, at the European level.

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